Throughout
history, many people have made lasting contributions to the
world of hostas. In these pages, we hope to pay tribute to
some of them. Our concentration will be primarily on those
who have introduced or registered new cultivars, found new
species, promoted the genus or added to our knowledge about
this, the Number One selling herbaceous perennial plant in
the U.S.

We are always looking to expand these listings
and to keep them up to date. So, if you have new information
or know
of someone who you think should be included, please
send us their name and a brief description of their
contributions to the World of Hostas. Thanks.

The son
of Robert Savory, Dennis
operates Savory Gardens nursery in Edina, Minnesota. He has served as
Secretary-Treasurer of
The American Hosta Society and President of the Midwest Regional Hosta Society. He has a
degree in Forestry.

Savory Gardens nursery was
established in 1946 in Edina, Minnesota by Bob Savory. A horticulture
graduate of the University of Minnesota, he was a long
time hosta enthusiast who introduced one of the all-time classic
cultivars, H. 'Golden
Tiara'.

George Schmid was trained in
several areas of botany and horticulture in his native Germany
before coming to the U.S. where he currently resides in Georgia.

In the hosta world, he is
probably best known as the author of the landmark book, The Genus Hosta
(1991) which was
the most in depth reference on the genus to
that time. That book
classified and re-classified the names and
organization of species and cultivars into what we currently use. His is also the author of the book,
An Encyclopedia of Shade Perennials (2002).

George was recipient of the
Alex J. Summers Distinguished Merit Award in 1996. He has served as
Co-editor of
The Hosta Journal, the AHS Historian and Chairman
of the AHS Nomenclature Committee. In addition, he is the founder of the Georgia Hosta Society, a Board Member of the
International Aroid Society and a member of the Association of
Plant Taxonomy. In 2016, George became one of only seven people
in history to be awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by The
American Hosta Society.

Hybridizer from Foxfire Gardens in Marshfield, Wisconsin, he
has introduced a series of hostas with the word "Foxfire" in the
name. The over 25 cultivars he has introduced include H.'Foxfire
Bamm Bamm' and
'Foxfire
Phantom'.

Mike is a retired member of the London Metropolitan Police
who now resides in Buffalo, New York. Before coming to America,
he was very active in the British Hosta and Hemerocallis Society
and has been involved with the
Chelsea Flower Show.

An avid photographer, speaker and author, Mike has
co-authored the Timber Press Pocket Guide to Hostas
(2007) with Diana Grenfell and The Book of Little Hostas: 200
Small, Very Small and Mini Varieties (2010) with his wife, Kathy
Guest Shadrak.

A
Bavarian who went to
Japan in 1823 as a medical doctor at the Dutch
trading post of Deshima, von Siebold became one of the great plant
explorers. With Zuccarini, von Siebold published the
book, Flora
Japonica, in 1833. He documented his collections at the
Leiden
Botanic Garden in Holland, where a Japanese Garden in his
memory may be found.

Another early
hybridizer of some renown is Eric Smith who lived in Dorset,
England. A nurseryman who was then working at the famous
Sir
Harold Hillier's Nursery called Buckshaw Gardens, Smith was
looking to grow smaller hostas with great blue color. In the
summer of 1961, he took advantage of a fluke occurrence when a
plant of Hosta sieboldiana 'Alba' flowered unusually late
in the season so he could use its pollen to fertilize the flowers of an
H. 'Tardiflora'
plant.

The whole story
of Smith's hostas gets a little complex but suffice it to say,
that the untimely original cross spawned a whole series of smaller,
very colorful, blue-green plants called the "Tardianas". The seedlings of the
first cross where designated as the F1 generation and the second generation
were the F2s. This was part of Smith's numbering system where he
simply named a plant TF1 x 1, TF1 x 2, etc.

Eric Smith himself
did not register any of his 34 Tardiana hostas. Fortunately,
other people including Paul Aden,
Alex Summers,
Peter Ruh and the British
Hosta and Hemerocallis Society named and registered the plants
starting in the mid-1970s.

In 1998,
he was the Co-founder
and first Executive Secretary of The American Hosta Grower's
Association. This group of wholesale and retail nurseries is
devoted to the promotion of hostas and the education of the
hosta growing public.

One of the founding members of
The American Hosta Society. He
was also a hybridizer of lilies and introduced such cultivars as
Lilium 'Nutmegger', L. 'Connecticut King' and L. 'Red
Velvet'.

Introduced several cultivars and registered them in the name
of his Piedmont Gardens nursery which was located in
Wolcott Connecticut and operated in partnership with Philip
Payne. The
cultivars included H.
'Carrie Ann',H.
'Pearl Lake' and H.
'Sunnybrook'. Some of the plants were registered
posthumously by
Peter Ruh on
behalf of David Stone.

Hybridizer from Alabama who has
introduced cultivars including H.
'Alabama Gold'.

Hybridizer from Okazaki,
Japan who has
introduced cultivars including H.
'Doctor Fu Manchu' and H.
'Raspberry Parfait'. In the 1980s, he sent hosta seeds to
Peter Ruh who germinated and grew them on. After evaluation, Ruh
subsequently registered several cultivars from the seedlings.
These are often listed as being originated by Hajime Sugita.

At the January 19, 2013 Hosta Scientific Meeting in Lisle, IL,
Mark Zilis
showed an image of H. 'Miracle Lemony' which Mr. Sugita
hybridized. It has YELLOW flowers. Zilis hopes to introduce it
into the U.S. in a couple of years.

According to
The Hostapedia by
Mark Zilis(2009),
"He also maintained the world's largest collection of hostas in
the 1960s and 1970s in Roslyn, New York. In the early 1980s, he
moved to Bridgeville, Delaware..."

Hybridizer and owner of Coastal Gardens nursery in Myrtle Beach,
South Carolina who
introduced several cultivars including many in the
PeeDee Series of hostas.

The name comes from two local rivers, the Greater Pee Dee River
and the Little Pee Dee River. The first hostas in this series
were registered with the term, "Peedee" in their names in
accordance with the naming rules of that time. Later, in 2007,
after the naming conventions were changed, the
Registrar allowed
for renaming cultivars using the term "PeeDee".